Flash fiction, the desecration and destruction of theatre. |
Amongst the run-down, rain-sodden streets, on a corner where few ever set their feet, is an old theatre shop. When the paint was unfading, it would sell to those flamboyant souls costumes and masks, paint and dreams, but not it's violated by those youths who throw their cigarette butts against it's armour. The rusted frame of the door seals those beautiful flashes of gold, red and silver from the prying outsiders, or the few who care to take a glance. On a clear summer’s day, the occasional passer-by might catch a glimpse of the wonder this haggard lover holds. Like an old gypsy woman, her looks have faded, and what is left is an array of rags, scars, and an impenetrable glass that isolates her. Inside there is such wonder she promises... But the glass. Once strong and powerful, weakened over the time through desolation and rotting wood. A quiver inside. There was a crash as the crucifix fell from the wall, and as though a signal for the desecration, it was then that the window was destroyed, the glass veil breaking apart, ripping to shreds the secrecy. So hideous, that this ball penetrates the world which time has abandoned, and invaded this capsule, a beast of modernity! It has torn the masks from the wall, ripped Romeo’s pantaloon, and scorned the watching Ismene on the wall, mouth frothing at the rebellion. Nobody heard this bubble burst, nobody knew for a day or so. But the old, weary queen of her art was then taken down, her contents removed, thrown away, left begging in a skip like an Oliver Twist. Sometimes the laughing mask would begin to cry, and join his brother in weeping for the tragedy that once was the stage. |